


Gadfly

by dizzy_dim



Category: Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Choking, F/F, F/M, Masochism, briefly implied Amane Misa/Rem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-17
Updated: 2020-06-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:40:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24691678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzy_dim/pseuds/dizzy_dim
Summary: After an eternity of numbness, pain becomes just as good as pleasure.
Relationships: Rem/Ryuk (Death Note)
Kudos: 8





	Gadfly

**Author's Note:**

> mm yeah this is like, capital c cursed  
> (also i swear this isn't as smutty as the tags and summary imply but it's uh definitely kinda out there)

Rarely does Ryuk experience the consequences of his actions first hand. He’s always been the type to fan flames and then fly off, watching the fireworks from the sidelines.

It’s easy with humans - the nature of his existence makes him entirely untouchable, unreachable. ( _He’s watched Light clamor for power and control from the moment he’d arrived in the human world. Plotting and struggling, knowing that no matter how hard he tries, or how much of a god he believes himself to be; unlike him he is forever tethered to this world._ )

Other shinigami aren’t that much harder to mess with, but there’s a little more risk involved. Less if they’re slow or inattentive. Or in some cases ( _a bandaged face and sniveling voice come to mind_ ) a plain pushover. Ryuk doesn't know much about Rem - the only times they've interacted have been after coming down here. But he knows enough to tell that she is none of these things, which means that if he crosses her he's less likely to get away.

So naturally he'd decided to go with the less severe route. Maybe an offhand comment here, a little needling there. Rem glazes over everything he sends her way with the same steely indifference she gives almost everything else. Until now, that is.

He hadn't planned on mentioning the girl she is obligated to follow, but somehow she'd come up anyway. Really, he hadn't said anything Rem didn't already know ( _'i mean, it's not like you can do_ _anything with her')_ though he was pretty much guaranteed to strike a nerve no matter what ( _'_ _even if we could I doubt_ you _would, since you're so uptight. not even with another shinigami, even though that's not as much of a taboo apparently.')_

Still, while he'd expected a strong reaction, _this_ certainly isn't what had come to mind.

Unhurriedly she stalks over to him, popping both bubbles of personal space in the process. One of his shoulders dips under the pressure of a weight that wasn't there before and then he realizes that it's Rem's hand. Ryuk doesn't ever think he's ever been at a loss for words before, but the bizarreness of the situation has caused verbal response or retort he might've had a minute ago to die in his throat, evaporating mid-thought.

Gradually her grip increases to the point where it's just shy of crushing him. After an eternity her hand slides up, and the other joins it. They tighten somewhere just shy of the base of his throat, squeezing. Just for a fraction of a second.

Rem’s claws dig into him like teeth into fruit, piercing flesh. Normally the wound would close instantly, his form rippling with the aftermath as its solidity faded and returned. But with the source of the intrusion still in place it can’t. And since it’s another shinigami doing this to him, becoming incorporeal probably won’t do anything. ( _not that he_ wants _to do anything_.)

The pain is delightful, layered. The bright prick of the claws is loud and insistent while the dull, tight ache lies quietly beneath it, equally severe. ( _after an eternity of numbness, pain becomes just as good as pleasure._ ) They don’t need to breathe: the insides of their bodies are as withered and dead as the world they inhabit. But even though he doesn’t miss the air, the restriction of movement is still new and exciting enough to thrill him.

Rem’s face doesn’t relay much expression, but there’s an angry, slow burning heat in her gaze that he knows wasn’t there earlier. It dissipates as soon as he meets her eye, realization dawning. She releases him.

The vertebra-like bones in her arms creak as she lowers her hands. He’s surprised when she doesn’t move away or leave. If he didn’t have the ability to walk through solid objects he’d basically be pinned to the wall. Ryuk can practically hear the gears turning in her head. He laughs.

“I never would've thought that you'd go and do something like _that_." He grins at her with all of his teeth, shark-like. "You're actually more fun than I thought you were."

The eye narrows, glinting in the lackluster light like a coin, cold and shiny. Irises thin and grey like pencil marks. If he were human, he might've thought she looked dangerous.

“I am not here to entertain you.”

He chuckles again.

“Didn't say you were. But while we’re here, we might as well...” Ryuk lets his voice trail off, hoping that he won’t have to spell it out. She seems smart enough for him not to.

“What?” Rem asks flatly.

Ryuk says nothing, thinking of the fastest way he can make her understand. He reaches around, as if he were trying to pull her closer, and extends a single digit. Drags the knife sharp tip over the ridges of bone, right over the place where one of her wings would extend.

The sound it makes is faint, but it’s there. Rough and harsh, slicing through the quiet of the room. 

“We might as well enjoy ourselves. Right?” He asks, already knowing the answer. He hadn’t missed the way she shuddered.

Ryuk reaches up, feeling compelled to grab something ( _her face, her hair, the bandages_ ) only to have his hand swatted away by one of hers. The other lingers just outside of his peripheral vision as a fuzzy blob.Her fingertips graze the skin for a moment before digging in. Slow and purposeful, mimicking what he’d just done. He hisses through his teeth. Her other hand returns to his neck.

“Be quiet.” Rem chides. Normally he’d roll his eyes at her or get even louder just to annoy her but he decides to let it slide this time.

From an outsider’s point of view it’d look like they were engaged in some kind of struggle – grappling and scratching, gouging bloodless wounds into each other. One of her fingers ends up straying a little too close to his mouth.

It’s like stone against his tongue, smooth and flavorless. The texture is uneven: shallow grooves and sharp points trail down the length of the digit, like a miniature mountain range. When he bites down on it it's surprisingly hollow, and the dry crunch that follows barely obscures the groan she tries to muffle.

Ryuk grins, mouth opening just enough for her to free herself from him, finger grazing his bottom lip.

And then her teeth are there instead.

They’re shorter than his but they sink in deep anyway. Curved just enough to make resistance challenging and painful, like pearly little fish hooks. Far more intense than the claws on his skin. Rem pulls away just enough to stretch his lip taut, make it _really_ hurt.

His hands twitch involuntarily, forcing the talons a little deeper. Ryuk drags all ten claws down her back, each one mirroring its counterpart, a symmetrical image divided by the line of her spine. She releases him entirely for a second, leans in again. By the time he realizes what she’s trying to do, it’s already happening.

_Now this,_ Ryuk thinks, _is a uniquely_ human _thing_.

What possessed Rem, who seemed to want nothing to do with anything human ( _besides Misa_ ), to do it, he’ll never know. Their mouths don’t fit that well together, yet it does little to deter either of them. He takes the opportunity to bite back eagerly, nipping at her bottom lip.

Her flesh is dry, plump, and the way it yields to the threat of his fangs almost immediately is _very_ satisfying, like the crunch of a fresh apple between his teeth. ( _though her mouth reminds him more of plums than apples, the pitted fruit he once tried but never really care_ _d_ _for._ )

Ryuk wonders if there’s anyone back in the Shinigami realm looking down at them now, and the imagined reactions of Deridoveley and Gukku cause the beginnings of a laugh to bubble up within him. One things for certain: neither of them are probably ever gonna hear the end of this.

He fists a hand in her hair and she returns the favor albeit in a far gentler way. Ryuk notices for the first time that the strands aren’t actually hair at all, slipping and squelching in his grip. It makes a pretty good handhold anyway, letting him yank her head back enough to bare her throat to him.

Eagerly he traces the seams that encircle it like rings, bone deep fissures that split the column of stone-flesh all the way through; turns it into something it twisted and broken and far more _interesting_.  
The metal staples taste coppery, frigid against his dull taste buds.

He relishes each sensation as it travels along his decayed nerves - they aren't alive, but are too active now to be considered completely dead. He knows she feels it too, the steady trudge of pleasure/plain throughout a vessel that supposedly has no need for either. Briefly Ryuk wonders what it’d take to overwhelm her dimmed senses, hopes he might find it just to see how she’d fall apart. ( _if their kind_ is _capable of such a thing._ )

Rem pulls him away from the wall by his feathered collar, a little too hard and a little too fast. It’s only fair that he take her down with him.

They end up sprawled across the floor. Neither of them move, slipping into that stillness no living thing can possess as easily as the sun slips from the sky.

There’s a razor thin line drawn in the sand that they both know they’re dangerously close to crossing, even though neither of them really know how to go about crossing it. He stares down at her without blinking, propping himself up with his hands and knees.

“It can’t be that bad,” He licks his lips. “The punishment, I mean.”

A split second of naked shock washes over her features at the implication before she remembers herself, makes her face inscrutable once again.

“You’re suggesting that we break the rules.”

“What? Breaking one rule wouldn't kill us, would it?.” His tone is one of jest. The question, on the other hand, is genuine. Ryuk doesn’t know what the penalty for breaking XXXVI is, but he’s pretty sure Rem does. ( _chances are he’s gonna have to answer to the old man once this is all over anyway - adding a little more fuel to the fire won’t make much a difference, as long as he’s careful enough not to get burned._ )

“It very well may.”

“So you don’t actually know what it is then, do you?”

“No,” She says, nudging him off. After only knowing a malicious touch ( _and the absence of touch entirely_ ), simple contact feels strange. “And I do not want to find out.”

He crawls away like some massive black spider returning to the dark, cobweb stricken corner of the room. Rem avoids looking at him in a way that she probably thinks he doesn’t notice. 

“I assume that you’ll keep this between us.” It’s worded like a question, but it sounds more like a fact. Like she _wants_ it to be a fact.

“Oh yeah. Like I’m gonna tell Light about something like _this_.” He shrugs. “Not that he’d wanna hear about it anyway.”

She hums, placated by his answer, before walking through the opposite wall and out into the dark.

Ryuk remains slouched on the floor, runs his hand over the side of his face and neck like the scrapes are still there. It’s a shame they aren’t.


End file.
